Trailwood:

"City of Trailers"

The NC State Veterans Association played a crucial role in securing
housing for married students, who represented nearly a third of
the veteran population. Couples and children were not allowed
in the dorms, and hardly any private apartments were available in
Raleigh. In February 1946 the association petitioned the university
administration and state politicians to solve the housing crisis.
Specifically, they pressured the college to lease 150 surplus trailers
from Camp Lejeune. By January 1947, two makeshift communities
had formed on campus: Trailwood, with 220 trailers housing 550
people; and Vetville, with 125 prefab units housing 375 people.
Eight months later, the emergency housing camps had grown to 250
trailers and 360 prefab units. Before they were explicitly barred from
setting up trailers on campus, single veterans parked 20 trailers on a
spot named "Bachelor's Corner."

The nearly 600 residents of Trailwood brimmed with civic spirit, forming
a town council, planting flower gardens, and chatting with their neighbors
over picket fences. Their community was short-lived, however. In late 1948,
a third of the trailers moved farther south on campus to make way for Williams
Hall, and in 1949 the rest of the trailer park closed. A second trailer park
known as Westhaven or Trailpark was established in April 1948 on the present
site of Miller Field and remained there until August 1953. According to Lawrence
Apple, "Life in Trailwood was rustic and spartan but sociable. All residents
(around 200 families) shared two community bathhouses. A common sight early
each morning were residents headed for the bathhouses with soap and towel
in one hand and the family chamber pot in the other. So the bathhouses were
the 'Trailwood Community Commons' -- where everyone had to go
and where community events and, yes, even some gossip were communicated."